English Meetings

Hi everyone, this past week we had the opportunity to visit the Sosua English congregation since our Spanish congregation was attending the C.A. which we've already attended. Doug and I were in Sosua when the English was just beginning. We were at the very first Sunday meeting in which Doug gave the public talk. I think there were maybe 30 in attendance at that first meeting 3 or 4 years ago. Well there were only 4 other people there this past Sunday besides Doug and I that had been in attendance that very first Sunday. And what was the attendance this Sunday......111. Wow  Of course they did have a lot of visitors, vacationers etc in attendance but still! One Elder told us that he counted 10 Bible studies in attendance which is great and if you've been reading the yearbook, the experience from the DR, that's from the Sosua English congregation. So it truly is serving a need here. It was nice for us to relax and enjoy a meeting in English. Afterwards we grabbed some pizza and headed to the beach in Sosua and met up with some other brothers and sisters and enjoyed some visiting with friends from different parts of the world.

Notice the three year texts in three languages, Spanish, English, and Creole. When we first came to Sosua 7-8 years ago there was one Spanish congregation. Today from the one there are three Spanish, one Creole, one English and also groups of Russian and Sign Language

This picture is for Danelle, This is Jana a mutual friend, she is currently serving with the Creole congregation.

I'll share two highlights from the ministry this past week. On Tuesday at Laura's study, we had a visitor. A young Dominican woman stopped in to see Laura. We had just gotten started in the study so Laura invited her to join us which she did. She didn't say a whole lot but when I was getting ready to leave, she said that next week she would come at the beginning of the study! When I talked with Laura on the phone the next day she said again that after I left the woman said how much she enjoyed the study and that I taught in a way that didn't make her feel "foolish". And that she wanted to come next week. So that made me feel really good. I'm often nervous and doubting my ability to teach in Spanish but this shows the benefits of keeping it simple, it's really what people need. The second nice experience we had this week was on Saturday at our study with Vilma. Doug had given her the assignment to teach her children Jehovah's name and also a quality of his by using an example in creation. She completed both assignments and related how she did so, it was very encouraging. Also during the study something cam up about time management and Doug told her that she would enjoy next month's magazines in which she replied "I've already read them online". We had told her about our website last week and the many tools it had to help us teach our children. So it was great to see how she had taken the initiative to not only check it out but use it!

Well that's all my news, it would be nice to hear from you! Enjoy some flowers around us.

Some Pictures

 Yesterday, Matt and Debra came over to the apartment for a visit. We had a nice visit, took a walk down to the beach, here are some pictures.

Matt was trying to get a fruit for me (can't remember the name of it but it is green with spines on it and suppose to be white in the middle, I guess we'll have to wait till one falls off to try it.

"I'm Having So Much Fun"

Cory gave the talk at our hall last night

After the meeting, Doug's talking with a new family that just arrived from New York, they are here for three months.

"Take my picture too"

I said those words, "I'm having so much fun" to the young sister I was working with in the ministry last Sunday. And it occurred to me that I don't really say that too much anymore. As I've grown older, one of the things I've discovered that I just don't enjoy things like I use to. The things that I loved to do when I was young, roller skating, skiing, running through the woods etc. Just don't get the same kick out of those things, probably because my body doesn't cooperate very well and I pay the consequences the next day. But there is a joy that we get from sharing in the preaching that it doesn't matter how many times I've done it, there is still a joy that is beyond all others. This past Sunday was a little extra special. It was announced at the meeting that Sunday would be a special service day in conjunction with another local congregation. The two congregations were going to help another congregation preach in seldom worked territory. Doug and I have participated in this kind of thing before here in the DR. We'd pack a lunch and go for the whole day up into the mountains, some remote are that didn't get preached to that often. It involved a lot of walking, passing through streams and over rickety bridges to talk to people seldom preached to. This time was a little different in that we were traveling to a town that didn't get preached in often because there was no congregation close by. We were told to meet at 8:30 a.m. at a local gas station and we would all pile into whatever cars, trucks, vans, etc. and travel about 40 minutes to this town. We had a large amount of support from the brothers here in the Cabarete congregation. It seemed like every publisher showed up. When we arrived in the town where we were to preach and were joined by the brothers from the Castillo congregation, the total was 90 brothers and sisters that had shown up to preach! We all piled out onto this side street where the brothers arranged us into groups of about 15-20 with a Captain assigned to work a certain portion of the town. It was quite a site to see! Matt and Debra McKinney are part of the Castillo congregation and Matt was asked to say the pray before we started in the Ministry (this was done in the Middle of the street in a voice loud enough for all to hear).  My partner Hannah and I had a beautiful morning enjoying many good conversations. One woman I talked to said that she had never talked to Jehovah's Witnesses, can you imagine! Since it was Sunday, many children were around, we had the opportunity to talk to several groups of young ones playing on the street and showing them was God's name is. Our part of the territory took us up a very steep hill where we enjoyed some beautiful scenery. We met a family group where four generations were living together. I talked to the older couple while Hannah talked with the two younger generations. It was really just so much fun! We were told to meet back in the middle of the town at a park where would all enjoy some lunch together. We had packed a little to eat but were surprised to find out that the sisters of the Castillo congregation had prepared food for all. No, there was no way they could have food for 90 people so we held back to see if there was sufficient. But indeed there was! We enjoyed some rice and chicken and had a nice time visiting.


We're continuing to enjoy many good experiences in the local territory. Doug found a woman last Wednesday who seemed very interested in learning more so he told her that he would bring his wife back on Saturday and show her how to study the Good News booklet. She was waiting and prepared, had great questions. We had a another great study yesterday, she had all the scriptures looked up and marked in her Bible. She said she was going to try to come to the meeting last night but she didn't make it. My study, Laura, came to both the Thursday and Saturday meetings last week and she made it last night also.

One of the things we enjoy while in the DR is eating and trying to recipes with the ingredients we can find here. Doug discovered this past week, that we have an avocado tree growing  next to our apartment building. So he found a big stick and knocked a few down. We waited a few days till they started to ripen and cut our first one up, Delicious! Since we have a free supply of Avocados, I started looking online for some different recipes to use them in. We like just cutting them up with a little salt or putting them on a sandwich but I found a recipe for Pasta with avocado sauce, hmmmm green spaghetti??  But decided to try it. It was weird eating green spaghetti but it tasted pretty good.

Meeting at the Gas Station

Some of the group on the street in the Territory

Quite a steep Hill, but pretty view from the top

Hannah and I

At the park for Lunch, can you pick out anyone you know??

The sisters dishing out the food!

So Cory and Jeni are with us  till tomorrow, we're heading to Cabarete this morning for some breakfast and enjoy some time on the beach.  Hope you all are well.........................................!

A Beautiful Day in the Ministry

I have to start out by saying how sorry I am that you are having such awful weather back home, Yuck! I understand it's suppose to warm up by the weekend, so hang in there! We had a beautiful day in the ministry today. We worked a territory called Isla Bon. We remember it from our past times here as the place of mud and mosquitoes. It wasn't too bad today, a nice breeze and sunshine was drying up some of the mud. But we did encounter many friendly people. I was assigned to work with an older newly reactivated sister who lived in the neighborhood, so of course she knew most of the people. We first were invited in by a Haitian family, very friendly, the parents didn't really read Spanish so we just shared a few scriptures with them and told them about the Creole congregation in Sosua. We next talked with three young girls, the parents were working but they invited us in and went and got their Bibles (10,11 yrs old) The sister had a nice talk with them and is going to return to try to study with them. They expressed a real interest in wanting to learn more. My next door was with two fleshy sisters that live together, they're in their 20's maybe 30. They were able to quote a lot of scriptures. I was talking about living forever and what that meant. When I asked their opinion, they of course mentioned living in heaven with Jesus. So we had a nice discussion about living on earth and I left the Good News bkl with them and highlighted lesson 5. So am looking forward to following up there. Doug ran into a former study of his who actually progressed and got baptized but is having some problems now, so he was able to spend some time encouraging him.  But the best experience was at the end of the morning and to tell this experience, I need to go back to last week. After the ministry last Tuesday, Doug and I stopped at the grocery store. While shopping a man approached us and said to Doug "when people are dressed like you, I think of Jehovah's Witnesses". He is our spiritual brother from California, here on vacation. He is Mexican, doesn't speak much English. He then introduces us to his adult daughter who is not a witness but he says she is interested in studying and would we come and visit her. He and his wife are only here till next week but the Daughter, Laura, is going to live here for about four months. So they give us an address and we say sure, we'll stop by. So on Thursday we spend about 45 mins. looking for this address in Cabarete, we have a building number but of course none of the buildings are numbered and everyone we asked has never heard of this place. Even though we didn't find them, we end up having a nice conversation with a woman from Honduras who runs a shop in town and place some magazines with her. So I look the place up on google and get a better idea of where it is at so on Saturday after we leave the group we go looking again, we have a sister with us whom we're giving a ride home  and with her help we find the place and are able to set up a time to visit and start the study, which we did today. It went really well, the woman, Laura, is in her 40's and even though she was raised in the truth, she left when in her teens but realizes now that the world really has nothing to offer and is ready to do something. She's planning on coming to the meeting with her parents this Thursday evening. Lola, the local sister that lives in the area came with me and will take care of the study when we leave. So it will be a joy for me to have such a nice study while we're here and even though we're studying in Spanish, she's fluent in English as well, so that's nice.  Doug and I each made a Return Visit on Saturday where we started studies in the Good News bkl. So you can see why we enjoy coming here (not just for the warm sunshine).

Cory called us Saturday evening and said they were going to in the area for a rehearsal and so thought they would come for a visit. So they spent Sunday night and Monday with us, which we thoroughly enjoyed. Here's some pictures.

Watch out Jeni, You're a little close to the edge!

Yikes, that's what happens!

Yeah, she got a little wet, so we took her home and dried her off.